Ancient Origins of Mesoamerica: Fresh Insights into the Civilizations of the Americas

Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and, to a smaller extent, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Peru, and Bolivia in the Central Andes have deep-rooted roots in the subsoil of their pre-Columbian civilizations. The first chapters of the history of Latin America correspond to those who inhabited it before their first contact with Europeans. This is especially true in Mesoamerica. The objectives here are to show the development of the peoples and high civilizations of Mesoamerica before the establishment of the Mexica (Aztecs) in the Valley of Mexico (1325); second, to examine the key features of the political and socio-economic organization, and the artistic and intellectual achievements achieved during the period of rule of the Mexica (Aztecs) in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; and, finally, present a vision of the prevailing situation in Mesoamerica, on the eve of the European invasion (1519), between the solid continental masses of North and South America, Mesoamerica (that is, the area where it developed with High culture difficulties, which, at the time of contact with the Spaniards, reached an area of about 900,000 km2), has a varied isthmic character, with various geographical features, such as the gulfs of Tehuantepec and Fonseca, on the Pacific Ocean coast, the Yucatan Peninsula and the Gulf of Honduras.